


the marks on your heart left in between

by mollivanders



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Bedsharing, Canon Universe, Caretaking, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Mutual Pining, Scars, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 22:57:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17252966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollivanders/pseuds/mollivanders
Summary: Cassian is leaning against a tree trunk, almost invisible in the gloom, and, to her at least, clearly favoring his bad leg. She picks her way back across the camp towards him, the two of them mere shadows in the trees. He hadn’t actually taken any major hits that day but the Scarif wounds still linger in his movements. He doesn’t really look tired though – just frustrated and annoyed at not being able to dive right into the Imperial comm systems – until his gaze lands on her.It’s probably her imagination but –(Something in him stills; something in his eyes eases.)





	the marks on your heart left in between

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marcasite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marcasite/gifts).



> Written for leaiorganas/marcasite as part of the The RebelCaptain Network's Secret Santa Exchange. The prompt was "Open to anything, would love something pre-relationship, mutual pining yet resolved." I put more than a few Easter Eggs in here for that :)
> 
> A/N: Set ~shortly~ after the events of the film because I'm Team They Would Get Together Quick but also, pining!

She felt his approach before he spoke; knew him by the rhythm of his steps and the particular edge of cautious haste that defined his movements.

(After Scarif – she’d know him anywhere.)

“I’m fine,” she mutters even as she struggles with the medkit, knocking it off its precarious perch on a rock and spilling supplies all over the ground. A stormtrooper had aimed at Cassian’s back during the melee and she’d just _snapped_ , tackling the ‘trooper from behind and pummeling him to the ground. It had turned into a bloody fistfight – that she’d _won_ – but it had left her knuckles torn and bloody even inside her gloves.

“You did a lot of damage,” he says, crouching beside her and taking in the disarray. “To the stormtrooper and yourself.”

“I’m fine,” she repeats, looking anywhere but at him. Somewhere in the mess of medical supplies there should be a bacta cleaning patch and some salve to close up the wound – but when she tears open the patch, she can’t stop the grimace that crosses her face.

She’s suffered far worse, of course, and managed on her own – but it’s his next move that stops her in her tracks. Cassian takes the bacta patch from one of her hands as he raises the other into better light. The first touch of the bacta stings and she flinches, but he’s careful, alert, and above all, knowing.

(It’s painful, being known.)

“Melshi said that ‘trooper put up a hell of a fight,” he says, his tone still light as he cleans the edges of her knuckles and then – in a shock of almost-contact – blows on the wound to dry it before fishing around for the salve. She’s not fooled, even with the distraction. She knows that tone; it’s thin ice at the end of winter, and if she’s careful, she’ll drown.

“My blaster clip was empty,” she says, her voice coming from somewhere far away. Cassian is cleaning someone else’s wounds; is in someone else’s space so close that she can breathe him in. And yet, she wants to be here – wants to be nowhere else in the galaxy but in this single square meter of space next to him. As he continues to dress her wounds, she notices that the nervous edge which often defines his movements has fallen away – has ceased to exist in this moment between them.

“I see,” he says, tearing open a gauze bandage to wrap her hand. Around them are the sounds of rebels settling after the hard-won forest battle – a skirmish, really, the seizure of a minor communications outpost – but one that could have killed them both all the same. “Melshi said something about the ‘trooper aiming for me, but being too far away to take him out.”

 _Melshi,_ she thinks to herself, _can stop being so kriffing chatty._

She can’t quite manage a response right now – but her fists clench under his watch, giving her answer all the same. In the field you didn’t say _thanks_ every time a soldier saved your life, and didn’t expect thanks in return when you saved theirs. You survived through the fray, or didn’t, and she’d managed to just be grudgingly grateful for that much in the years since Saw had left her.

(Since her jailbreak from Wobani – since Scarif – something had changed.)

Quietly, Cassian moves to dress her other wounded hand, ministrations just the same as with the first. She’d really torn them up, and it wasn’t a non-issue – if they didn’t heal quickly enough, it would be harder to grip a blaster or her truncheon, or pull off a round of blaster fire, and seconds counted in the fights they ended up in. Seconds counted to save her life, or his, or that of any of their friends. There was bruising under the wound from the force of her blows – stormtrooper armor wasn’t made of light plastic – and she’d be paying for that in the next few days.

As Cassian works, she tracks his movements; competent and careful all at once. His hands are scarred just like hers, bloodied and filthied from a hundred fights just like this one. More than anything else though, his hands are a comfort – and it doesn’t make her want to run like it should. It jangles something alive inside her, something that had thrown her at the ‘trooper like a battering ram.

“You’d do the same for me,” she says quietly, finding her voice at last in the stillness between them. The sounds of the rebel camp drift away and Cassian at last meets her eyes. It’s a sharp hit to her nerves but she quirks a smile all the same, and gets one mirrored back to her. “You have.”

“All the same,” he says, the tips of his fingers ghosting over the top of her bandaged knuckles before finally falling away – she misses the contact in a sharp pang – “I appreciate the support.”

A moment held – a moment broken as someone calls for _Captain Andor_ – and though he’s moved by duty, his eyes still linger on her for a long set of heartbeats that pound in her ears and make her realize –

 _Oh_.

(Oh _no_.)

+

In the chaos of the fight – grenades going off next to flash bombs, air support screaming above them and firing off torpedoes, blaster fire and smoke clouding the ground attack – the living quarters for the Imperial comms team had been well and truly destroyed. In the morning they would scavenge the remains for supplies and the intel they’d risked so many lives for, but with the night coming on fast, Cassian has to wait for morning for the all-clear to lead a team into the main tower.

She can see how it bothers him, pacing in an agitated pattern near the building as the rest of the camp settles into the rare luxury of a secure victory. Melshi and the Pathfinders had set up camp near the comms tower so the whole crew wouldn’t have to traipse back through the dark to their ship for the night, but it was still enemy territory, victorious battle or no. As the last embers of the campfire burned low, Jyn found herself on watch with Cassian.

(That, she knew, was no accident – and was glad for it.)

Something had changed in the battle. Something she wanted to run _towards_ , for once – and maybe more.

After Scarif, there hadn’t been time for joy, or relief, or anything else. Cassian had been in the medbay for weeks after their escape, and he’d still been in a medical coma when she’d guarded his emergency transfer to _Home One_. By the time they’d both recovered from their injuries, over a month had passed and the frenzied intimacy they’d developed before Scarif seemed like something she’d maybe imagined, or wished for, but by now completely out of reach. Cassian was a respected officer in the Rebellion, and she –

She was a prodigal rebel soldier, trying to find her place in the aftermath of her father’s destruction, _and_ the Lion of Onderon’s prodigy. She was, to say the least, a challenge for the High Command. At least Bodhi fit in with the other Imperial defectors, but even though Jyn had kept watch at Cassian’s cot through his recovery, it was hardly a setting for intimacy, let alone romance.

(Or whatever else she might have imagined along the way.)

Since his recent recovery, and with the High Command’s very tentative trust in her, they’d been sent on separate missions that hadn’t seen battle, until today. Today was the first battle since Scarif, real action that she’d been itching for – a fight she could throw herself into with clear purpose. _The best soldier in my cadre_ , Saw had said, and without a touch of arrogance she knew he’d been right – fighting was a dance, a victory waiting to happen, with as little elegance and grace as she wished to lend to it. It had made her dangerous at a young age, and her focus hadn’t been easily broken by anything – until today, when she’d seen a stormtrooper take clear aim at Cassian’s vulnerable back.

(His back, barely healed from falling ten stories and battered across beams that still haunted her dreams.)

So the stormtrooper had paid – and so had she.

Now, the campfire smokes as she tosses another log onto it, still wired from the long day. It’s a difficult realization to face, and she knows in her bones Cassian understood what happened even before she did. He’d been so careful earlier with her bandages, and she replays their conversation in her head, unpacking it for errors and missteps. She doesn’t have the energy for another confrontation, or a lecture about the _cause_. She already knows.

(It really is painful, being known. It’s also scary as kriff.)

Cassian is leaning against a tree trunk, almost invisible in the gloom, and, to her at least, clearly favoring his bad leg. She picks her way back across the camp towards him, the two of them mere shadows in the trees. He hadn’t actually taken any major hits that day but the Scarif wounds still linger in his movements. He doesn’t really look tired though – just frustrated and annoyed at not being able to dive right into the Imperial comm systems – until his gaze lands on her.

It’s probably her imagination but –

(Something in him stills; something in his eyes eases.)

“Perimeter’s still clear,” she says, her voice drifting low across the night. The trip wires the rebels had set up would bungle any stealth attack and wake the whole camp in the process, but she’d learned from Saw never to rely on equipment more than her own eyes.

“Good,” he says with a sharp nod, eyes darting over the camp. He’d learned to trust others about as well as she had, whether tools or sentient beings. But something – something there had changed too. Something else, new and a little strange-fitting, lingering at the edges of their shared night.

 _I trust you_ , she thought – and pushed the thought away. _Focus_.

With effort, she speaks.

“Melshi was right,” she says, and swallows her nerves when his eyes land on her again. “I didn’t really think at all,” she admits. “I saw that ‘trooper aim at you and just – ”

She pauses, taking a moment to collect her words. It isn’t easy for her. Her eyes track the sparks rising from the campfire, a reassuring crackle in the air as they drift higher and higher.

“It’s _stupid_ ,” she says, quiet as a confession but spoken all the same, “because you could die any time, we could both die tonight, but I just – I couldn’t watch you die again.”

(Not after Scarif. Not after – )

Her voice cuts off as he falls again in her memory, the ghost of a spy who almost died, whose heartbeat she had felt falter and slip under her hands before she’d barely pulled him back. It had been the longest shuttle flight of her life. She shuts her eyes, clenches her fists past the ache, and lets out a breath that takes some of her anger with it.

She doesn’t even hear the rustle of leaves as he moves, just senses his presence in front of her and almost flinches as he murmurs her name, making her eyes snap to his once more.

“Jyn,” he says again, the emotion of whole speeches cradled in the weight of her name, and takes her wounded hands in his, fingers brushing over the bandages from earlier that day. It’s a potent touch, one that roots her to the ground where they stand. His forehead tilts down to hers, closing the distance between them to nothing as he exhales shakily.

“My blaster clip really was empty,” she says, suddenly just as shaky, and turns her hands in his, cupping them close and slipping her fingers through his. He shakes his head in the barest movement, not breaking contact, and draws ever closer.

“I know,” he says, and his hands tighten in hers as she bends up to kiss him. The sharp jolt of pain in her hands hits her right with the kiss and she’s suddenly dizzy, leaning up into him and pulling him closer as adrenaline pounds in her heart. The forest is cool and Cassian is warm through his frayed clothes, heating her from head to toe. Her thoughts are static and he makes a frustrated sound, trying to get closer, and she gasps a laugh into him as he stumbles them back to a tree. Her foot snags – catches on a wire – and they both freeze at the same time.

“No alarm,” Cassian says in the most regretful tone she’s heard yet, and he looks down at her, joy being dragged down with frustration at the real world crashing back in.

“Kriffing. Military. Logistics. Supplies,” she growls and Cassian smiles – actually smiles. Her hands are still around his neck and she releases him with a pang.

We should do another perimeter check,” she says and shakes her head in frustration, trying to clear her head at the same time. “Meet back here in ten?” he says, but before she steps away completely he catches her hand, pulling her back for a brief promise of a kiss.

(Welcome home.)

A muffled sound of surprise – of joy against her lips – and then she slips away.

It feels like more than the start of something new.

It feels like hope.

+

_coda_

She wakes first and early, unused to their new quarters on Echo Base. Cassian is still tucked behind her, his arm loose around her stomach as he sleeps, and she thanks the Force he seems dreamless. She’d seen his nightmares in the medbay, and she’d felt them here. He’d known hers. A peaceful night was a blessing, as Chirrut would say.

But she still can’t get used to the space of the new quarters.

(“They’re the basic quarters here for anyone of rank,” Cassian had said when she’d first seen them, practically swooning over the private ‘fresher, but – she knew he understood. If anyone did, he did.)

She’d moved into his quarters on _Home One_ almost by accident, stray piece of clothing followed by stray piece of weaponry, until the logistics officer was asking if she’d give up the general dorm cot she rarely used so they could reallocate it. It was a little embarrassing to have a military official ask if she was officially moving in with her – Cassian – but Cassian had just said, “I thought you already had.”

(She hadn’t missed the smile tucked away in his eyes when he’d said it.)

But now, on Echo Base, this was _theirs_. It was strange to have it be hers _and_ Cassian’s; strange to have really any space to call hers at all. Strange that nobody had put up a fuss either, as officers were officially technically not supposed to fraternize – but this was a rebellion, wasn’t it? So here she was.

Here _they_ were.

The familiar nuzzle against her neck gives him away and she turns to catch the first glimpse of him in the simulated morning light. He’s barely awake but the ever-present alertness to his movements is already there, the mirror of herself.

“You’re still here,” he half-mumbles and she doesn’t miss the relief in his voice. She shifts closer, brushing her nose against his and he sighs against her, his eyes slipping back shut. She’d never have guessed Cassian could be downright _lazy_ , before.

“It’s a very nice cot,” she says. “And there’s a private ‘fresher.”

(That and she’d switched her roster duty with Melshi, who’d given her a knowing grin. He really did need to get his shit together.)

“Well,” Cassian says, a wry note to his voice, “I had hoped that ‘fresher would tip the scales.”

She hums against him, stealing a kiss as he comes more fully awake. “Hopes?” she asks, and angles closer. “You?”

( _Hopes_ lingers between them, a shaky flame almost blown out in the first hours of the reborn rebellion. She thinks of Scarif, of the lift back down to the shuttle, of Jedha, of Cassian calling her name through the rains of Eadu, of stardust, of bandaged wounds and the press of his kiss under cover of darkness – of coming home.)

His mouth quirks and she grins. “Hopes,” he confirms, and brushes a kiss across her hand, his lips ghosting across her scars, their hands tangling together as he moves higher. Outside, Echo Base is barely ready for a fight, the Empire is still chasing them halfway across the galaxy, and more problems than she cares to count are waiting for them.

Here – from this space just with him, and beyond – his faith carries her with him.

(All the way.)

_Finis_

**Author's Note:**

> 1) I tied in a few well-known lines, with some minor modifications along the way.
> 
> 2) I saw the chance to give Jyn and Cassian a Pemberley in their Echo Base quarters and _jumped_ at it.
> 
> 3) I am always here to dig into Jyn and Saw's history. Best soldier in his cadre, y'all!


End file.
